Rescuing Riley, Saving Myself Read Online Free Page B

alone, abandoned, abused, isolated, left for dead by someone. I didn’t know who, and I couldn’t say why, but I knew, I was certain, what the dog was feeling. Our paths had crossed, and now we were connected, either by destiny or random chance, but from the moment I first saw him, I knew I wanted to prove something to him—that even though some other human had done this to him, this one wasn’t like that.
    In that moment, I also knew I was not going to leave him where he was, or pretend I hadn’t seen what I saw, or that it was not my responsibility to save him. That part was almost simple. I didn’t need to ask, Could I live with myself, if I didn’t do something to save him?. Would I ever be able to get the image out of my head of the poor creature, abandoned at the bottom of a hole? The easy answer to both questions was no.
    I retrieved my pack. For the first time since leaving Salt Lake City, I wished I wasn’t alone. I returned to the pothole, took out my cordless drill, notched a drill bit, and tightened the chuck. I picked a spot in the rock at the top of the chute and began to drill, setting my bit at an angle perpendicular to the rock face. After about thirty seconds, my bit was perhaps six inches into the soft sandstone, deep enough to set a bolt and hanger. I took a bolt from my pack, a five-inch-long threaded zinc screw with a sleeve around the threads, pounded it in with my hammer, and tightened it with a wrench, turning it several full rotations clockwise. The hanger attached to the bolt compressed between the sandstone and the nut, locking up tight. I clipped into it and tested it. It seemed secure, but if I was wrong, I could find myself in the same predicament the dog was in: trapped without food or water.
    I put on my climbing gloves, leather with padded palms for grip and protection from friction, and backed down the chute hand-over-hand. I felt the air turn damp and several degrees cooler as I descended. The bottom of the pothole sloped down-canyon, and at the lower end, there was a layer of damp mud.
    I knelt down next to the dog. His eyes were open, but he didn’t look at me. He stared off into nothing, listless and unresponsive. I took off my gloves and laid my hand on his side. I could feel his ribs, hardly any muscle tissue between them, and the ends felt sharp, as if they could perforate his skin. I couldn’t feel a heartbeat, but his rib cage expanded, barely, as he breathed. I tried to give him an affectionate touch, a scratch behind the ears, but he was unresponsive and motionless. I wondered how he’d summoned the strength to walk in circles when I first saw him.
    Now it was as if he knew I was there, and he was giving himself over to me.
    “You’re going to be all right,” I said softly. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
    Was I trying to convince myself or the dog?
    I found my water bottle and unscrewed the cap. I positioned the mouth of the bottle close to the dog’s lips. Suddenly he lifted his head and opened his mouth to display his teeth, one last effort to defend himself, perhaps, but when he tried to growl, I heard only a rasp. His head went down again. It was all he could do.
    I poured some water onto the rock in front of his mouth. He didn’t notice.
    “Come on,” I said. “You have to drink something.”
    I poured more water in front of his mouth, splashing it onto his lips, but again, no response. I considered pouring water directly into his mouth, though I feared he might gag on it or even drown. Then, when I accidentally spilled water onto his paw, directly in front of his face, he seemed to understand what I was offering him for the first time. His eyes moved slowly. His small tongue came out, dry and almost white, and he licked the top of his paw, but in slow motion, his tongue absorbing the water like a sponge before he transferred it to his mouth and throat.
    That deep in the canyon, no surface sounds penetrated. The angles of the rock walls formed